Supreme Court

January 21, 2012 - With its disastrous Citizens United decision two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court unleashed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections. By the court's invented criteria, this unlimited spending does not corrupt American democracy so long as it's "independent" of candidates' own campaigns. The court also promoted transparency — disclosure of who funds our politicians — as a key ingredient in our democracy. Two years later, this independence and transparency are, in practice, merely myths.

About our data

Read the details about our data sources and methodology. Data refers to direct contributions to the campaign committees of elected legislators. For example, contribution totals exclude contributions to party committees such as the RNC or the DNC and exclude contributions made to individuals that did not win their election.

For U.S. Congress, contributions data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org) and legislative data provided by GovTrack.us.

California contributions data provided by the National Institute on Money in State Politics (FollowTheMoney.org).